The wind came surging against the windows with a sudden burst of fury, and the sashes rattled. As the gust passed to the different angles of the house, the sound of other shaking casements came from the rooms above and across the hall, dulled with the distance, till a single remote vibration of glass and wood told that even in the furthest cells the inmates of this drear place might share the gloomy influences of the storm, though fair weather meant little to them, and naught the sweet o’ the year. A yellow flash, swift and sinister, illumined the dull, gray room, that reverted instantly into gloom, and, as if the lightning were resolved into rain, the windows received a fusillade of hurtling drops, and then their dusty, cobwebbed panes were streaked with coursing rivulets mingling together here and there as they ran. The sheriff sat silently awaiting further disclosures, his eyes on the window, his guarded thoughts elsewhere. “The same words every night?” he asked at last. “The same words every night,” repeated Tubal Cain reluctantly, as if making an admission. “Oh, you can’t arrest a man for talking in his sleep,” put in the deputy, with the air of flouting the whole revelation as a triviality; and he yawned with much verisimilitude, showing a very red mouth inside and two rows of stanch white teeth. “I ain’t sech a fool ez that, Mr. Dep’ty,” snarled Tubal Sims raucously; “but puttin’ sech ez that tergether with a pale face an’ blue circles round the eyes, in the mornin’, o’ the stronges’, finest-built, heartiest young rooster I ever seen in my life,--he could fling you or the sher’ff from hyar clean acrost that creek,--an’ layin’ on the ruver-bank day arter day fishin’ with no bait on his hook”-- “What’d he catch?” queried the deputy, affecting anxious eagerness. “All he expected, I reckon,” retorted Sims. “A-layin’ thar, with his hat over his eyes, day arter day; an’ his eyes looked ez tormented ez--ez a deer I shot wunst ez couldn’t git up ter run an’ couldn’t hurry up an’ die in time, an’ jes’ laid thar an’ watched me an’ the dogs come up. An’ this man’s eyes looked jes’ like that deer’s,--an’ I never let the dogs worry him, but jes’ whipped out my knife an’ cut his throat.” The deputy’s eyes widened with pretended horror. He snatched a pair of handcuffs from the drawer at the side of the table, and, rising, exclaimed dramatically, “You say, in cold blood, you whipped out your knife and cut the man’s throat!” “Ye think ye air powerful smart, Mr. Dep’ty,” sneered Sims, out of countenance, nevertheless. “But thar ain’t much credit in baitin’ an’ tormentin’ a man old enough ter be yer father,” remembering the sheriff’s rebuke on this score, and imputing to him a veneration for the aged. “Yes, stop that monkeyin’, Jeemes,” Blake solemnly admonished his junior. Then, after silently eying the rain still turbulently dashing against the windows, he said reflectively, “Don’t ye think, Mr.--Mr.--I disremember your name?”